Tag: fish
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PBS Eons: The Mystery of the Missing Deep-Sea Fish
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the evolution of fish.
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Video for ESCONI April 2026 General Meeting – “Life in the Devonian Period, The Age of Fishes”
The April 2026 General Meeting was held on April 10th, 2026 at 8:00 via Zoom. At the meeting, Jessica Hull presented “Life in the Devonian Period, The Age of Fishes.”
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PBS Eons: Why Evolution Made Your Teeth Hurt
There’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the evolution of teeth.
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Fossil Friday #291: Carboniferous Fish in Black Shale
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #291. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This week’s Fossil Friday is a detailed Carboniferous fish fossil…
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Fossil Friday #286: Rhabdoderma exiguum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #286. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week’s Fossil Friday, we have a Rhabdoderma exiguum.…
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How Did Hands Evolve? The Answer Is Behind You.
Carl Zimmer has an interesting post about the evolution of hands. It appears it all started about 360 million years ago… Now the precise DNA-editing technology known as CRISPR is letting scientists reconstruct this ancient evolutionary change in molecular detail. It turns out that hands and feet were not the products of new genes doing new things.…
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Fossil Friday #280: Mayomyzon pieckoensis
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #280. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Mayomyzon pieckoensis is an extinct species of lamprey found…
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Video for ESCONI February 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting – “How to Explore the Incredible World of Microfossils”
The February 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting was held on February 15th, 2025. Our speaker was Katherine Howard. Her title of her persentation was “How to Explore the Incredible World of Microfossils”. This presentation is geared for anyone who is interested in pursuing microfossils. Prepare to be amazed at the plethora of microfossils that can be…
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2025 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #6: Diplomystus dentatus from the Green River
This is the preview post #6 for the 2025 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2025 will be held on March 15th and 16th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller review – a marvel of narrative non-fiction
The Guardian has a review of one of my favorite books of the last few years. Lulu Miller’s “Why Fish Don’t Exist” is about a few thing all woven together. It’s first a biography of David Starr Jordan, who was the founding president of Stanford University. He was a prodiguous ichthyologist whose team classified around…
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Fossil Friday #218: Rhabdoderma elegans from the Field Museum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #218. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Rhabdoderma elegans was described by John Strong…
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Mazon Monday #214: Rhabdoderma exiguum
This is Mazon Monday post #214. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Rhabdoderma exiguum is a species of Mazon Creek coelacanth. Coelacanths are lobe-finned fish, thought extinct since the Cretaceous. The first living coelacanth was discovered in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. There are now two known living species.…
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Fossil Friday #210: Rhabdoderma exiguum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #210. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! —————————————————– For this week, we have a…
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380-Million-Year-Old Fossils of Air-Breathing Tetrapod Fish Found in Australia
SciNews has a story about the discovery of a Devonian tetrapodomorph fish in Australia. Harajicadectes zhumini lived about 380 million years ago near what is now central Australia. The animal was described in the paper “A new stem-tetrapod fish from the Middle–Late Devonian of central Australia” in the journal Vertebrate Paleontology. “Tetrapodomorpha comprises the limbed tetrapods…
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Fossil Friday #195: Acanthodes beecheri
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #195. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week’s Fossil Friday, we have…
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ESCONI January 2024 General Meeting – Friday, January 12th, 2024 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “The Age of Fishes”
The January 2024 General Meeting will be held on Friday, January 12th, 2024 at 8:00 PM. It will be presented by Matt Friedman, Professor/Director Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Topic: ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM – Topic: “The Ages of Fishes” Time: Jan 12, 2024 08:00 PM Central…
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Fossil Friday #191: Acanthodes beecheri
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #191. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week’s Fossil Friday, we have…
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Fossil Friday #190: Squirmarius testai
Squirmarius testai is up this week. It’s a new Mazon Creek fossil family member and hagfish. It was the subject of Mazon Monday #193.
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Fossil Friday #184: Gilpichthys greenei from Mazon Creek
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #184. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have a beautiful, huge Gilpichthys…
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Fish’s big mistake preserved an unusual fossil for us
Ars Technica has a story about an interesting fish fossil. A fossil fish, Pachycormus macropterus, from Germany shows that even fish sometimes bite off more than they can eat… This particular fish fossil has a fossilized ammonite in its belly. The fossil was found in the Fischer Quarry in Zell unter Aichelberg, Germany and dates…
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Fossil Friday #173: Elonichthys hypsilepus from Mazon Creek
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #173. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! —————————————————– Today, we have a gorgeous Mazon…
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Jurassic era fish fossil found to have died from eating an overly large ammonite
Phys.org has an interesting post about a fish that died from indigestion. The fish, an actinopterygian named Pachycormus macropterus, lived during the Jurassic Period between 174 and 182 million years ago. Its fossil was found in Germany in the Posidonienschiefer Formation. It swallowed an ammonite, which was much to large for it to digest. Read…
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Fossil Friday #154: Platysomus circularis
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #154. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! We have a real treat today… a…
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2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #12!
This is the preview post #12 for the 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2023 will be held on March 18th and 19th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Fossil Friday #148: Phareodus encaustus
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #148. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have a very nice Phareodus…
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Fossil Friday #145: Bony fish teeth from North Carolina
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #145. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have some interesting fossil fish…
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Mazon Monday #140: Gilpichthys greenei
This is Mazon Monday post #140. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Gilpichthys greenei was a jawless fish. They are fairly rare and associated with the Essex fauna of Pit 11. G. greenei was described in 1977 by David Bardack and Eugene Richardson in the paper “New agnathous fishes from the…
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PBS Eons: How Plate Tectonics Gave Us Seahorses
PBS Eons has a new episode on Youtube. This one is about the evolution of the seahorse. How did seahorses — one of the ocean’s worst swimmers — spread around the globe? And where did they come from in the first place? Thanks to Franz Anthony (http://franzanth.com) for the incredible syngnathid reconstructions used in this…
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Video for the ESCONI September 2022 General Meeting – “Paleozoic fishes of the Illinois Basin”
The September 2022 General Meeting was held on Friday, September 9th, 2022. The presenter was Dr. Ryan Shell of the Cincinnati Museum Center. The title of his talk was “Paleozoic fishes of the Illinois Basin”. Dr. Shell is a research associate in the department of vertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati Museum Center and a Paleontological…
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Haul of Fossil Fish Pushes Back the Origin of Teeth and Jaws
Smithsonian Magazine has a post about some amazing fish fossils. A series of papers published in the journal Nature shed light on the evolution of teeth and jaws. The discovery of these fossil fish from the Silurian of China has pushed back the oldest jawed fish to about 436 million years ago. Previously, the oldest…
